The French tourist board in London hosted an exclusive cocktail reception at the St Martins Lane Hotel to promote French foreign territory destinations in the South Pacific and Caribbean to the media.
The lucky journalists who were invited got to sample cocktails inspired by the beautiful islands including Tahiti, Guadeloupe, St Martins, Reunion Island and New Caledonia which are all French departments.Which means as far as food and all the infrastructure you are actually in France ie the European Union when you visit.
Yves Brossard is the managing director of the Primea Hotels group which has venturesin Morocco and the French Caribbean, on the butterfly shaped island of Guadelope.
Yves is is really into Elixirs – – the elixir of life, the elixir of love the elixir….he tells me. What can I say but he is my kind of man!
Primea has both hotels and French-style residences where you can do your own catering if you wish – on Guadeloupe: Residence Torquise, Hotel Residence Golf Village and Residence Le Vallon – read more at www.primeahotels.com.
One of the really interesting totally off the beaten track places – they are all off the beaten track but Nouvelle Caledonie is farthest from anything – the nearest civilisation being New Zealand.
Corinne Juillet is the press officer for New Caledonia based in Paris. This island is huge and parts of it look like Scotland hence the name and the fact it was discovered by a Scotsman.
It’s very rural, a place to get back to nature and relax – somewhere completely different. I hope I get to find out one day.
There is a raffle with a lovely prize – two weeks in Guadeloupe. I don’t win it but M Broussard invites me to Guadeloupe anyway – so all I have to do is get the tanning lotion.